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Christian Living

If I Am Not Persecuted Am I Not A “Good” Christian?

The Bible indicates that Christians will be persecuted. And therefore, you will occasionally hear a pastor say that if you aren’t being persecuted, then you might want to consider how well you are living out your Christianity.
picture of a fist symbolizing the idea of being persecuted

This used to concern me, because I didn’t sense a heavy amount of persecution toward me. As much as it is possible, I strive to live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18). I know other Christians who try to do the same. And that means not much persecution has come my way. So does that mean I’m a sub-par Christian?

I certainly don’t believe you have to be highly persecuted to prove your Christianity, but I do believe that if you faithfully live for Christ and speak for Him, then you will have people around you who will not always appreciate what you have to say. At the very least, those people will probably seek to avoid you. In those instances, we must be willing to remain true to our Christian beliefs and not shrink from them in order to win the approval of others.

In studying this issue, I ran across the following information from a commentary that was helpful to me in getting a better definition of persecution. It is from the 1800s, so I’ve tried to modernize the language to make it a bit more readable:

Devoted Christians who live as the Savior did and who carry out His principles will always experience some form of persecution. By persecution, we mean that a person will be subjected to a disadvantage on account of his opinions. This is more than just arguing with him about his opinions, it is inflicting some injury on him; depriving him of some privilege or right; subjecting him to some disadvantage; or placing him in less favorable circumstances, because of his beliefs.

This may be an injury to his feelings, his family, his reputation, his property, his liberty, his influence. Or it might be by depriving him of a position which he held, or preventing him from obtaining one to which he is eligible. It could be by subjecting him to fine or imprisonment, to banishment, torture, or death.

If, in any manner, or in any way, a person is subjected to disadvantage on account of his or her religious opinions, and deprived of any rights to which he or she would be otherwise entitled, this is persecution.

Now, it is doubtless as true as it ever was, that a man who will live as the Savior did will be subjected to some such injury or disadvantage. On account of his opinions, he might be ridiculed, or treated with neglect, or excluded from part of society. The person who lives as the Savior did may be shunned by those who might otherwise value his or her friendship.

These injuries and slights may be expected in the best times and under the most favorable circumstances; and it is known that a large part of the history of the world, in its relation to the church, is nothing more than a history of persecution.

—Albert Barnes (from the mid-1800’s)

So now that we have a broader (or better) definition of persecution, we realize that we do not have to be physically threatened to consider ourselves persecuted. Just the fact that some people exclude you because of your Christian beliefs falls into the category.

(But let’s also not mistake the fact that if we are arrogant or condescending about our beliefs, then that might be what is excluding us! So don’t get confused and indicate that you are being persecuted for your Christianity, when you are actually being persecuted because you are being a jerk to others. The label “persecution” only works if you are striving to be a good friend and yet you are still being excluded.)

So the follow-up questions after getting a better definition are: How should we respond to such persecution? How should we respond to being excluded because of our Christian beliefs and behaviors?

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Relationships

The Transactional Relationship – What Can You Do For Me?

a street in the suburbs to go along with the idea of life with transactional relationshipsIn his book, Death by Suburb, David Goetz indicates that American Christianity has drifted into a focus on success and prosperity and the fulfillment of the American dream. The suburbs developed as a place where those with sufficient means could escape some of the unpleasant circumstances of both city and country life (not living in the stress of the inner city, but also not living too far away from modern conveniences). Doing so provides the residents of the suburbs with a high level of comfort, and now we have allowed comfort and security to become idols for us, discouraging us from doing anything uncomfortable for God. This suburb mentality has infiltrated our Christianity and taken our focus off of radical and dangerous living for Christ and His mission.

Which brings us to the transactional relationship. One toxic mindset we’ve developed is: “What will this relationship do for me?” But God encourages us to build deep and meaningful friendships without looking for a better return on our investment. Goetz says:

“In suburban life, we live by the transactional relationship – we are quick to give a helping hand to the man on a ledge a little higher up – so that we can benefit from what they can give us later. Intimacy is the one thing in suburban church that everyone craves but few seem to have. You can’t use transactional relationships and expect to experience in them the kind of friendship that sweetens life and takes the edge off its hard parts. In true friendship (non-transactional), I can feel the grace of God where I experience what it means to be accepted not for the value that I add but for the value I am.”

Are you looking to build relationships only with those who can provide you something in return? When you think about serving someone, do you have the thought in the back of your mind, “How will this provide me with a possible benefit in the future?”

Jesus said: “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment….”

Stop investing only in Transactional Relationships and begin investing in people for the simple facts that they were also created in the image of God, that they are loved by God, and that God calls you to love them too.

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Relationships

I’m Shocked, But I Shouldn’t Be

When you see someone’s bad behavior, do your eyes ever pop out of your head or your jaw hit the floor? Do you ever just gape in astonished awe due to being shocked that they could do such a thing?a shocked smiley who has seen something unbelievable
Though I have seen a lot, I find I can still be shocked by peoples’ bad behavior. But maybe I shouldn’t be. Or at least, maybe I need to learn to accept people for who they are, instead of judging them so harshly. Near the end of the book Christy, these paragraphs grabbed my attention because I have found that I have needed to learn these exact same things about accepting others:

“I saw for the first time that we have to accept people the way they are and not be shocked about anything. In my idealism, that had been hard for me. I had not understood Miss Alice’s acceptance of the mountain people and had often been frustrated, sometimes even infuriated, by her unwillingness to push harder for changes.

“I now understood that the reason we have to accept other people is simply because God receives us just the way we are.

“I had never thought it should be that way. Had I been doing it, I would have arranged gradations of acceptability according to how bad or how good we were – or how hard we have tried. But Miss Alice had helped me to see that the Power who lovingly rules over our aching world has quite a different idea: He persists in receiving us and loving us all even when we reject Him and refuse to have anything to do with Him, even when we boast about our little intellects and insist that He does not exist.”

Oh the love of God. He isn’t shocked by my bad behavior. Jesus said that He already knew what was within a man! While not being shocked by my sin, He still hates my sin. And yet, He still loves me. How can I be so idealistic and hard on others, refusing to accept them and love them because of their bad behavior – especially when I am so loved even though I so often display unlovable behaviors and attitudes?

The truth is that people without Christ cannot expect to live as if they have embraced His teachings. It is an unreasonable expectation for us who follow Christ to expect people who do not know Jesus to embrace His teachings. So instead of us getting angry at the people who don’t yet know Christ for not embracing our same beliefs, let us be people of compassion and show them the benefits and joy of knowing Christ and His abundant life. That will be more beneficial to them than our anger and refusal to offer friendship.

It is time for me to be accepting and loving of everyone around me. Even if I don’t agree with their behaviors or attitudes, I can still love them and care for them, hoping to love them to a relationship with Christ and a life transformation.

— brian rushing

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Relationships

Building Up The Body

Missionaries strive for building up new believers so that the church in a given area can be strengthened. This is done through developing friendships and discipling new believers. In the process, sometimes a person who did not feel hand grasping another and pulling them up depicting the need for building up each otherthey had much worth in this world find new confidence and self-worth as they realize that God has given them talents and abilities. I have seen the effect of this in Honduras, and it is remarkable to watch. As a missionary, Christy was developing a friendship with a woman in the community. She was teaching her English and informally discipling her. Here is what she said about the young lady:

“She admired me extravagantly, beyond any deserving. And if I cared about her enough to single her out to spend long hours with her, well then, perhaps that secret person on the inside, who from shyness and deprivation had kept herself so covertly hidden all these years, was a woman worth knowing. This gave her the courage gradually to let her true self out of prison.

“Having tasted freedom, she was certain that the world of knowledge and beauty was hers for the taking. And because she gave me full credit for laying the world at her feet, she could not find enough ways to express her gratitude…. Once I unfolded a scrap of paper to find written on it:
        I love you for what you are making of me.
        I love you for what I am when I am with you.”

I wonder who, if anyone, would say this about me. Do I live in such a way that my encouragement and support is changing someone else’s life for the better? How about you? Dads, would your sons echo this sentiment due to how you are training them each day? Moms, can your daughters say this about you when you spend time with them? Do our friends or coworkers hold these feelings toward us?

Henry Blackaby wrote – Due to the essence of the church being koinonia (“intimate fellowship & community”), there should never be anyone in your church who is lonely.

Yet, there are many in our own churches who are lonely, who are struggling. In what way am I building up their lives and helping them to know the love of God through me? Life is all about relationships – an intimate relationship with God and intimate friendships with others. Am I building up others by teaching them and informally discipling them through my words, actions, and attitudes? Are you?

(Quotes from the book “Christy” by Catherine Marshall)

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Relationships

Cold-Hearted Smiles

“I realized why these mountain people were shy with strangers. They had never learned the citified arts of hiding feelings or of smiling when the heart was cold. Friendship was dangerous to them because they had built up no protection against it. Once they let you in it must be into the deep places of the heart.”

Isn’t it sad that we have become so “citified” that this describes us to a “T”? We know how to put up a facade. We can hide our feelings so that people believe us when we tell them we are “fine.” We have the ability to smile at those toward whom we really have a cold, icy heart. We have built up walls and barriers so that we have protection against our hearts being hurt by others. That is why we seldom let them into our lives. And we men are more guarded than women.

barbed wire strands with blue sky and clouds in the background

Our hearts long for a deep connection with others. Some of us might deny this, in that we don’t like the idea of “longing” for anything, but in reality, we have simply trained the idea of needing deep connections out of us. We tell ourselves we are self-sufficient and do not need anyone or anything. But if we will are honest, we know that we all want friends with whom we don’t have to put up a false front.

So we have this heart’s cry for depth, but we instead settle for casual superficiality. We’ve learned how to do it so well, which means our deep need for close connections goes unmet.

If we would be willing to take the chance to reach out to someone for friendship with transparency, we might just find that it is there for the taking. Knowing that there exists the possibility of being hurt makes it hard to take that step of faith, but the potential rewards make the risk worth it. We all need at least one friend with whom you can fully be yourself, no longer having to keep up your guard, having them accept you “warts & all,” willing to listen to you laugh on a good day and complain on a miserable one.

“I came to know a quality of friendship which bears little resemblance to the casualness of our relationships back home. The mountain type of friendship was a tie of substance between people with a sort of [brave faithfulness] about it. It had to do with a time in the past when there was no more final bond than a man’s pledged word; when every connection of blood and family was firm and strong, forged in the past, stretching into the future.”

I want relationships with substance and depth. We all do. So what will it take? Us risking the possibility of someone stepping on us and breaking our trust. But finding that true friend will be worth it. Are you ready to open up and let someone into the deep places of your life? Probably not – at least not yet. But consider taking that first step – begin being more transparent with a few of your closest friends and see how your relationships begin changing. The ones that respond with similar transparency will give you a clue as to who is ready to be a deep friend to you.

(Quotes from the book “Christy” by Catherine Marshall)